The Escambia Wood Treating Company (ETC) site is located at 3910 Palafox Highway, northeast of the intersection of Fairfield Drive in Pensacola, Florida, and is in a mixed industrial, commercial, and residential area. The site includes the 26-acre property of the former wood preserving facility and over 60 acres of nearby neighborhoods. The facility was in operation from 1942 until 1982, then abandoned by the owner in 1991. During its operation, ETC treated utility poles, foundation pilings, and lumber with creosote and pentachlorophenol. Production byproducts were dumped into on-site, unlined containment pits where they seeped into the surrounding soil and groundwater.
The site sits above the aquifer which supplies drinking water to the county's residents and also flows into Bayou Texar and Escambia Bay. Contaminants from ETC have affected surface soils at the facility and surrounding areas, and have leached into the groundwater, causing a plume that extends approximately 1.3 miles from the site. A second Superfund site, the Agrico Co. site, is located near ETC, causing additional soil and groundwater contamination.
The United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is the lead agency for the ETC site cleanup, and site remediation is being conducted and financed through Superfund with the Florida Department of Environmental Protection (FDEP). In 1992 the EPA excavated around 255,000 cubic yards of soil on the ETC property, which was mounded onsite and covered with a tarp. This mound of contaminated soil became known to the local community as “Mount Dioxin.” ETC was added to the EPA's Superfund National Priorities List in 1994. Site clean up, including the removal of Mount Dioxin, did not begin until 2005, and is currently on-going.
In 1997 the EPA's National Relocation Pilot Project began the relocation of 358 households affected by contaminants from ETC. In 2006, an additional 46 households were identified as being directly impacted by contamination, and the relocation of these families was completed in 2009. The removal of these residential areas was the third largest Superfund relocation initiated by the EPA, after Love Canal in Niagara Falls, New York and Times Beach, Missouri.
The neighborhoods surrounding the ETC were composed primarily of low-income African Americans in single family houses and federally subsidized apartment buildings. Residents were concerned by contaminants from the ETC, including creosote-related compounds, pentachlorophenol, and dioxins, which occurred as an impurity in pentachlorophenol. The affected residents formed a grassroots environmental justice community, Citizens Against Toxic Exposure (CATE), to bring their concerns to the involved government agencies. CATE has been extremely effective at forcefully dealing with the government, obtaining congressional support, news media attention, and the assistance of national organizations.
Background
The Escambia Wood Treating Company is located at 3910 Palafox Highway, northeast of the intersection of Fairfield Drive in Pensacola, Florida. The 26-acre site is situated in an area of mixed land use, bordered by a small residential community to the north, the CSX railway to the east, Palafox Drive to the west, and by numerous businesses in an area of mixed residential and industrial zoning to the south. ETC operated from 1942 until 1982 as a manufacturer of treated wooden utility poles and foundation pilings. The Escambia Wood Treating Company filed for bankruptcy and abandoned the site in 1991.
Before the start of operations in 1942, the land was used for farming. From 1942 until 1963, ETC used creosote in the wood treating process. ETC's Pensacola facility was involved in the pressure-treating of wood products, primarily utility poles and foundation pilings. Southern Yellow Pine was debarked, formed, dried, impregnated with preservatives, and stored at the facility until delivered to customers. From 1944 to approximately 1970, coal-tar creosote was used as the primary wood preservative. The use of creosote was later replaced by pentachlorophenol (PCP).
Wood treatment process
In 1963, pentachlorophenol (PCP) was introduced to the process and was used exclusively from 1970 until the facility was closed in 1982. PCP dissolved in No. 6 diesel fuel was used at the facility as a preservative from 1963, and was the sole preservative in use from 1970 to 1982. Creosote is a mixture of more than 200 organic compounds that are distilled from coal tar at temperatures between 200/C and 400/C. PCP is prepared by the chlorination of phenol in the presence of a catalyst, and is commonly acquired in bulk crystalline form and dissolved in hot diesel fuel because PCP is a solid at ambient temperatures. Before pressure impregnation of preservative into the debarked and "framed," or formed, wood products, naturally occurring moisture and resin were removed from the Southern Yellow Pine using a steam/vacuum process. In this process, the wood was placed in treater cylinders and heated using steam from the facility's wood-fired boiler. Condensate formed in the cylinders during the heating cycle was continuously drained to a condenser hot well, then to a primary oil/water separator via a process drain system. At the end of the heating cycle, the cylinders were vented, and a vacuum was applied. Liquids in the wood, which were either vaporized and removed by the vacuum system or removed from the wood by internally generated steam, settled to the bottom of the cylinders. These liquids then were pumped to the primary oil/water separator at the conclusion of the vacuum cycle. The vacuum system at ETC was a steam ejector jet attached to an elevated, direct-contact, barometric condenser. Vapors from the treater cylinders were condensed, mixed with the condenser cooling water, and were gravity-fed from the condenser 35 feet in the air to the condenser hot well, and then to the oil/water separator. Following the heating/vacuum cycle, the wood preservative was impregnated into the wood under pressure. After the impregnation cycle, the pressure was reduced in the treating cylinders, and the wood products were removed from the cylinders on trams used to transport the wood stock.
Waste Management
Following pressure reduction, excess wood preservative was allowed to drain from the treated products along drip tracks before on-site storage in the nine treated-wood-storage areas. ETC took few environmental precautions, discharging spent creosote and PCP-laden waste into unlined holding ponds on site and into unlabeled drums. The treatment cylinders (pressure cookers used to saturate the wood with pentachlorophenol and other chemicals) would sometimes fly open, releasing hundreds of gallons of the toxic solution; workers were sent to pump out creosote and pentachlorophenol which had pooled in yards north of the plant after heavy rains flooded the waste ponds and to distribute sand over the contaminated areas. Contaminated wastewater and runoff from the former treatment area were the primary wastes managed at the facility.
In the early years of operation, all wastewater was sent to an unlined impoundment located in the northeastern part of the site. This natural earthen unit was used from the mid-1940s through the mid-1950s. After the mid-1950s, process wastewater and contaminated runoff were managed by two separate systems. Process wastewater was initially managed by an oil/water separator to recover treating chemicals and process water for reuse in the wood-treating process. The system consisted of two concrete and treated wood impoundments. The former "hot" and "cold" ponds, each used from 1955 to 1982, and with a holding area of 6250 cubic feet, operated in series. The "hot" pond received wastewater laden with PCP and creosote before its discharge via shower heads into the "cold" pond. The shower heads cooled the water, volatilizing some of the organic constituents. Water from this unit was discharged to the Pensacola sanitary sewer system or pumped back into the process vacuum line. The contaminated runoff from the treatment area was directed into a runoff collection/separation system. This system consisted of a concrete collection pad and a series of separation basins, which removed waste-treating solutions from the runoff water. Runoff was then pumped via a storm-drain system to an impoundment located in the southern section of the facility. The impoundment, which was constructed of sectionally poured concrete, had a holding capacity of 225,000 gallons. Wastewater in the impoundment, also known as the "swimming pool", was allowed to evaporate, and the remaining content was discharged to the Pensacola sanitary sewer system
Contaminants Creosote, pentachlorophenol (PCP), polyaromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), and dioxin are the main contaminants found on the site. Properties adjacent to the site include residential lands where PAH and dioxin contamination attributable to the site has been identified. Primary contaminants in the ground water are PCP and naphthalene. Dangerous levels of other toxic wastes at ETC include arsenic, benzo(a)pyrene, dieldrin, naphthalene, toluene, xylene, benzene, copper, chromium, asbestos, PCBs, and more.
Demographics of affected neighborhoods
According to the 1990 census, the population of Pensacola was 58,165, and the population of Escambia County was listed as 262,798. The nearest homes are directly adjacent to Escambia Wood on the northwest boundary of the site, with some homes located within 15 feet of the excavated area.
Thirty to 70% of the people within a one-mile radius of the site live below the poverty level. In comparison, 0 to 30% of the population in other areas of Escambia County live below the poverty level.
The residential areas nearest the site, Rosewood Terrace, Oak Park, Goulding, and Escambia Arms, consist primarily of African-American communities. Additional demographic data indicate that minorities make up 60 to 100 percent of the total population within a one-mile radius of the site. In comparison, most other areas of Escambia County have minority populations that range from 0 to 10 percent of the total.
Thirty to 70% of the population within a one-mile radius of the site has not completed high school. In comparison, in most other areas of Escambia County, the percentage of the population that has not completed high school ranges from 0 to 30%.
Cleanup
Construction of the remedy for OU-1 (soil) began in September 2007, and the earthwork portion of the project was completed in January 2010. More than 500,000 cubic yards of contaminated soil were buried in a lined containment cell on site. The remaining construction activities include establishing vegetation, replacing a sewer line, and treating water draining from the containment cell. Approximately 10.2% of the total cost of the cleanup was funded by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA). A total of $3.5 million of ARRA funds was provided to the project and was used to pay EPA's contractor and local subcontractors, and to provide supplies for construction. EPA's contractor has reported that 79.25 jobs were created with the ARRA funds.
During the spring and summer of 1991, the EPA conducted a site investigation. Based on the site investigation, the EPA implemented emergency response measures and began the excavation of contaminated soils in October 1991. Analysis of excavated soils indicated that excavation should proceed to the water table at a depth of 48 feet below the land surface. Groundwater analysis revealed extensive contamination with PAHs and PCP.